


Shake it Off

by Cyrelia_J



Series: The Unrivaled Extraverse [3]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alien Culture, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Attempt at Humor, Culture Shock, Damar has had enough of your shit, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, Mild Language, everyone is extra af
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 02:30:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14322585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyrelia_J/pseuds/Cyrelia_J
Summary: A few months into their settling on Earth, Damar finds Garak and Parmak back for another round of making his life Hell as needs them to sign off on some paperwork for an incident they caused. Get them in, get them out, get paid... Guls they don't pay him nearly enough for this!Modern AU (aliens still aliens) circa 1990Extraverse Tale #3





	Shake it Off

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know why but I can totally picture Damar sitting around reading mystery novels on the porch.
> 
> Also, for those curious, Garak is basically wearing Nathan Lane's outfit from The Birdcage

Someone needs to inform the worthless civil servants in the Foreign Relations Bureau that he is a _sponsor_ and intermediary not a Guls damned babysitter. Someone also needs to send them the bill for the damage to his Lincoln and the scare that Northern maniac and his lover gave Damar’s precious beagle Maryann. She’d been laying out on the porch next to his near deaf old Coonhound Brownie (who’d hardly done more than lift her head at the crash before flopping back to sleep) and had nearly knocked him backwards off his rocking chair on the porch when she’d dove onto his lap. Her paws had neatly torn the pages of his brand new copy of Lawrence Block’s “On the Cutting Edge”- Waiting three months on reserve, thank you, Kelas Parmak- and Damar was left sourly tossing the damaged book aside as he’d gone to survey the damage. No wonder the main character Matthew Scudder was a recovering alcoholic.

Of course, Damar only has himself to blame. He could have met with the two of them at their own residence and saved himself the aggravation, but he’d passed by there by chance and decided that he’d rather not have the human whores at Greenwood circling his car like drugged out vultures. No, for better or worse (worse, definitely worse), he’d had to request the meeting be at his house which leads him full circle to Parmak getting out dressed no less scandalously than the last time. 

No, it’s worse. It’s definitely worse. He’s covered his shoulders but that’s all that he’s covered, walking around in a cut off shirt showing his stomach of all things and yet another pair other obscenely short pair of cutoff denim shorts. Damar isn’t even sure he ought to be looking at him lest his wife think he’s solicited some local prostitute for services. (Not that he ever would being married to such a lovely buxom woman who still calls him “big daddy” after ten years of marriage.) Parmak also has a pair of sunglasses sitting on top of his head while still wearing his usual offensive spectacles.

“You don’t have insurance, do you?” Damar asks as he surveys the massive dent to his bumper. The Nokaran idiot blinks at him stupidly and crosses his arms. 

“Mmm... insurance... is that ahh... a type of chewing gum?” He asks looking to Garak who’s finally getting out of the car looking as if he’d like nothing more than to kiss the ground. Damar wonders if it’s too early in the day to have a drink.

Garak brushes himself off, also looking completely ridiculous. He’s dressed in a pair of loose striped pants with a large oversized yellow button down shirt that looks like a woman’s shirt and a large scarf tied around the top. He’s wearing the most ridiculous white hat and Damar opens his mouth to comment but thinks better of it. There’s no point, he says to himself. None. Just have the meeting and send the two misfits back to Trenton and pray they reassign them to a different agent. Perhaps Broca could take another case. No, not even Broca deserves this.

“Insurance for motor vehicles was in the supplemental reading,” Damar informs Parmak flatly as he goes to inspect the damage to his Lincoln. 

“Really, Kelas,” Garak says sounding nowhere near as chastising as Damar feels the situation warrants, “You assured me that you’d done all the necessary research into the operation of the vehicle.”

“I learned how to _drive_ it, Elim,” Parmak says and the hell he did, Damar thinks as he sees the cratering dent in the chrome. “I can’t imagine there’s much more to it than that.”

“Licensing, insurance… Guls, this is a seventy nine Mark V Bill Blass Edition! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?!”

“Absolutely! Bill Blass is the height of glamorous elegance Kelas. Relaxed, pared down but still luxurious, still fine quality materials. This shirt as a matter of fact is an original Bill Blass though I did have the jazz the piece up a bit. But surely you didn’t call us here to discuss fashion design?” Garak asks as Damar thinks that his jaw is going to lock tight or crack clear out of his mouth. It’s only the timely intercession of Maryann trotting back over to nose at his leg that brings his temper back under control.

“No,” he says with a sigh, scratching behind the beagle’s ear. “There’s a matter of paperwork following a certain incident that the two have you been involved in since your arrival-“ Guls, has it only been three months?! “-that you need to sign off on.”

“This isn’t about Dominos is it? Because James assured me that I wasn’t causing him any trouble.” The Northerner looks concerned and Damar turns back to the house, Maryann following behind. He doesn’t want to ask. He really doesn’t want to ask but it’s his _job_ to make sure that the new migrants integrate, adapt, don’t cause any unnecessary _trouble_ so he asks in spite of himself.

“There was an incident at the Dominos?” he asks warily as the three of them walk back to the house. Brownie lifts her head once more but seeing no sign of treats resumes her lazy late summer nap. He twitches as there’s not an immediate answer to the question, catching Parmak’s reflection in the glass of the front door as they walk up the steps of the large three bedroom renovated farm house. The northerner is… staring at his posterior again. Damar resists the urge to put his face in his hands. This is quick Damar, he tells himself. They only need to sign off on the incident at the coffee house and by the will of the State they’ll leave and never darken his door again. 

He sees Garak elbow Parmak, hears a clearing of his throat, and sees a few more whispers before he opens the door for them to enter. He has the papers on the dining room table this time so they don’t need to go in any further than absolutely necessary.

“Sit,” he says gruffly, getting the documents ready. “Do I even want to know?” he asks, Maryann laying down next to him at his feet. They sit, Garak shooting Parmak a warning look that seems to be ignored. Joy.

“Oh no, there’s no trouble there, at least not at the establishment. I would never interfere with a young man’s work… and at least I don’t think it’s any trouble since James gave me his word that this was customary just ah… a little known secret amongst special customers.”

“It’s _not_ , Kelas,” he hears Garak mutter. 

“It most certainly is or else we wouldn’t get free pizza every Friday,” Kelas protests and Damar decides immediately that he does _not_ want to know. No mercy there though as Parmak continues and as he does Damar almost sympathizes with Garak sitting next to him. Almost. “See now I’m sure you know this as long as you’ve been on Earth but I hadn’t realized when I placed the order and James- he’s a dear, he really is- came to the door with our food, well I’d forgotten to go to the bank and it was quite embarrassing when I asked him if there was anything I could possibly do to make up for the trouble and he was really such a dear boy about it.”

“Kelas-” Garak warns and Damar almost thinks he hears the thud of someone being kicked under the table. He wishes it was him doing the kicking right about now.

“Don’t, “Kelas” me, you said that it had never occurred to you or else you’d have done the same to save us a few dollars-” 

“I most certainly did _not_!” Garak claps an unsightly hand over his mouth. Parmak seems to... bite him? Guls these inbred Nokarans! Damar is starting to get a sneaking suspicion as to where he’s going with this as to what exactly the nature of this arrangement was… Not because he goes out of his way to watch those sorts of things mind, it was a friend of a friend who showed him that video and-

“Mmm… well I’m not going to argue with you if you’re going to be like that about it, Elim.” Parmak didn’t… this blasted immoral Norakan savage didn’t _possibly_ \- “But it was quite a happy accident to discover that one can trade a few minutes or oral gratification for food-” He did. Of course he did.

“He thought you were a woman, Kelas.” Guls and ancients!

“He most certainly did not! I told him my name was Kelas.” They’re not paying him enough for this.

“Which I’m sure meant nothing to him since humans know nothing about Cardassian names.”

“Well you’re wrong on that. He said it was a beautiful name.”

“I’m telling you he didn’t because I know how these humans operate. I’ve told you that you need to be more discreet in your affairs; humans are _funny_ about certain things,” Garak again- finally a voice of reason in this insanity.

“Right,” Damar interrupts putting an end to this stupidity. “He’s absolutely right. Which brings me to the matter of the incident in the coffee shop.”

“I don’t see why,” Garak sniffs. “We spoke with the officers and they were completely sympathetic to the misunderstanding.”

“The fight two of you started nearly spilled out to the street and the bar next door,” Damar points out as he slides the report over for review and acknowledgment. 

“They’re not pressing charges,” Garak said while Parmak reads the document.

“That’s not the point. The point is that when incidents such as these arise we need to intervene to be sure that there won’t be a reoccurrence. As a matter of fact if it wasn’t for Enabran Tain I could very well have the both of you sent back to Cardassia Prime tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with that name,” Garak says dismissively. Damar keeps a steady look.

“He’s your father.”

“He’s nothing of the sort.” Damar growls and bangs the table irritated, only reigning himself in when the noise causes Maryann to jump. Right, temper, temper, that’s what his wife says, temper, blood pressure. He’s better than this.

“Whatever quarrel you have with the man. The fact is that you are his son. If you’d care to argue the point you’re free to return to Cardassia Prime and take it up with the registry at the Records Bureau.” And let them tell him where he can go and what he can do with himself when he gets there. “But for the purposes of our interactions here, and particularly for the fact that you have what might as well equate to diplomatic immunity the both of you-” Because the world is an unfair, unjust and miserable place. “-the man who is the current head of the Obsidian Order is in fact your father. So if you will kindly sign off on your acknowledgment that I have informed you of your responsibilities to represent the State in a manner befitting proper Cardassian citizens, that I have informed you that poetry reads are not an excuse to exercise what these Americans call your First Amendment rights in a disruptive manner with the intent to incite a riot, and that lastly you will _read_ the supplemental literature assigned…” 

He glares daggers at the both of them. “…then we can be finished here. Now will that be all?” He asks through gritted teeth, Parmak already signing his signature hastily. Damar takes one look at it and realized he could’ve had Maryann sign the thing and it would’ve looked much the same. No, no he is a _professional_ and he has a job to do and the Nokaran of course has another question because those dull witted steppe people _always_ have another question.

“Ah, just one. And I do want to thank you for your kindness and generosity and once we’re a bit more established I’ll be happy to make amends for your car-”

“He’ll be fine, Kelas, they pay them well enough,” Garak murmurs with his own signature and Damar thinks he’s going to have that cold kanar and orange juice that his wife keeps urging him to try and set up a dart board in the rec room with both their images.

“Mmm I suppose but anyway,” Parmak says looking quite determined and dare he say perturbed. “We’re absolutely going to need more condoms! We’d used up the last ones in a week. Perhaps you can set up a recurring delivery?”

No, they really don’t pay him enough for this.


End file.
